As
there were not with the army enough pontoons to complete the two
bridges required, I was expected to build one of them of trestles;
and a battalion of the First Michigan Engineers under Colonel Innis
was sent me to help construct the bridge. Early on the 3ist I sent
into the neighboring woods about fifteen hundred men with axes and
teams, and by nightfall they had delivered on the riverbank fifteen
hundred logs suitable for a trestle bridge. Flooring had been
shipped to me in advance by rail, but the quantity was insufficient,
and the lack had to be supplied by utilizing planking and
weather-boarding taken from barns and houses in the surrounding
country. The next day Innis's engineers, with the assistance of the
detail that had felled the timber, cut and half-notched the logs, and
put the bridge across; spanning the main channel, which was swimming
deep, with four or five pontoons that had been sent me for this
purpose. On the 2d and 3d of September my division crossed on the
bridge in safety, though we were delayed somewhat because of its
giving way once where the pontoons joined the trestles.
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